After returning from Canada and several great shows in my home country, including the Mundial Conference and an afternoon unique live performance (both music and interview) with Stuart Knight in Toronto, I am happily home in Beijing. But recently, a podcast I recorded with (the same) Stuart Knight this past summer, 2019, has now gone live on their site. It…   …read more.

Similar to the workshop above but without the focus on women, Ember Swift chronicles the arrival of Western music in China and how it has merged with traditional sounds of Chinese instrumentation and the Chinese scale. As “rock” music has only been in China for just over twenty years, these stories are recent and the first wave of Chinese rock…   …read more.

In this lecture/Q&A-style workshop, Ember speaks about various journeys to China (both pre and post Olympics) and highlights the historical trajectory of women’s role in the music industry throughout the past several decades (post-Mao opening of China until modern day). Having conducted over a dozen unique interviews, including an interview with a member of the first all-female rock band in…   …read more.

After a semester of teaching “Contemporary Composition” at the Beijing Midi School of Music in China (in Chinese!) as well as having served on the Humber College faculty in Toronto for the Song Writing workshop series in the summer of 2008, 2009 and 2011, Ember Swift’s “Song Writing” workshop  discusses the various components of a song by analyzing famous songs,…   …read more.

Similar to the general workshop about independent music, Ember Swift’s “Women in Independent Music” workshop adopts a feminist perspective  in this male-dominated industry. This workshop is meant to empower female artists to seek excellence in their craft, to counteract the pressures from our still imbalanced Western society, and to approach their art as an entrepreneurial endeavour.Similar to the general workshop…   …read more.

With most of her music experience focused on travelling outside of her native Canada, Ember Swift speaks about the trials and challenges, as well as the triumphs, of travelling to international destinations with one’s music. This is a lecture/Q&A-style workshop designed to assist the working musicians interested in cross-cultural communication and the export of their music to other national markets….   …read more.

Ember Swift’s “Sustainability in the Music Industry” workshop has a variety of lengths that range from a two-hour lecture/Q&A-style workshop to a 5-day workshop that includes additional guests. It is a discussion about the how-to’s of survival in the music industry as an independent artist “by identity and not default.” Topics are subdivided into smaller categories that include musical development,…   …read more.

Ember Swift’s “Art & Activism” workshop is a forum in which to examine how art has a role in activism and activism has a role in art. Participants are encouraged to reflect on the full process of making art from the original intention, to the method of conveying one’s message, to the impact that this message has on one’s audience.Ember…   …read more.